Don’t just look for the Universe’s signs – tune into them!

If you have been created, you will be provided for.

The other day an unenviable situation stared us in the face, details of which I cannot share here. But it will not be an exaggeration to say that we were dealing with something grossly worrisome.

In such times, I do lean on my practice of mouna (silence periods). I also rely on my awareness to help me banish worry. But given the intrinsic nature of the human mind, worries, like most other thoughts, will arise. Over time, while I have understood the futility of worrying, I often am foxed by my mind’s urge to solve a problem situation. And when a problem defies a solution, worry sets in, naturally. I have to then summon all my spiritual strength for me to order my mind to calm down. What helps me immensely, in situations like these, is the Universe sending me signs that I will be looked after, provided for and cared for. And, unfailingly, the Universe sends me those signs – every single time!

So, even as I grappled with an imponderable the other day, I received an email from a friend. It was random mail. The mail itself had no evident reason to either reach me or appeal to me. Except that it contained three magical words:  “Whatever happens, happens”. I leaped at those words and held on to them. That was the Universe, sending me a calming thought, a sign, as always, even as I grappled with my reality.

People often ask me how do we make sense of the inscrutable continuum of Life? And I always tell them that if they are tuned to the Universe’s energies, the Universe will always send them signs. I only have my lived experiences, and my learnings from them, to share. And experiences are always deeply personal; often logic-defying. I talk about several such instances in my Book (read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal). And here I am sharing one more instance today. So, how does it happen? How does it work? And does it really work?

Conceptual clarity, surely, can be helpful here. I believe that we have all been created on this planet. Yes, biologically, we are the result of a physical activity that transpired between two people – people who we know as our parents. But all of us have been born without our asking to be born. So, we are created. I am of the firm belief that if we have been created without our asking for it, and if we have survived so far, without our knowing or understanding what Life is all about, and if we are given a situation now to deal with, we must trust the process of Life – that we can deal with that situation, we will be directed to a solution, we will be provided for. If we approach Life with this humility and perspective, we will be able to pick up the signs that the Universe is sending us – signs that will help us last one more day; or survive until the next point when we need, and when we will receive, another reassurance.

Honestly, we must learn to live without reassurances. Because in reality, if you reflect deeply, we have all been always given whatever we have needed. But the fickle human mind craves for reassurances. And the benevolent Universe is always willing to send you signs. You can receive those signs though only when you are tuned in. Are you?

Jab Tak Hai Jaan…it ain’t over yet!

The Universe is always sending you signs, so…stay tuned!

December 31 has always been special for Vaani and me in the past decade or so.

It was on this day, in 2007, that we were told by our lawyer S.Vijayaraghavan (Read more here: Fall Like A Rose Petal) that we were bankrupt! Realizing that we just had Rs.2,000/- left with us in hand, with our bank accounts running in deficit, all our gold jewelry pledged, no real estate investments, insurance or stock options to fall back on, and Rs.5 crore outstanding to 179 creditors (I call them Angels in my Book!), we had gone to Vijayaraghavan to seek professional, legal counsel. Aashirwad was 17 and getting ready to go to college, Aanchal was barely 13. Our Life, that day seemed so dark, so hopeless, so impossible to salvage. It seemed to the two of us that it was all over! What do you do when you don’t know what to do?

So, in a sense, today marks a unique anniversary in our Life. Of our bankruptcy!!!

There’s an unforgettable throwback to that day. Earlier in April of 2007, Aashirwad and I travelled to Rajasthan on a vacation. We visited the holy dargah of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti (1141~1236 CE), the Garib Nawaz, in Ajmer. I instantly felt connected with the energy of the place. I experienced the same Higher Energy at the dargah that I had felt at the Vatican in 1995 or while visiting our family’s native shrine, the Mangottu Bhagavathi Kaavu, in Athipotha (Palakkad, Kerala). My own views on God and religion have evolved over the years – but I can surely relate to a Higher Energy, which is also why I occasionally visit select shrines – to “repair and recharge”. Following our visit to Ajmer, perhaps because I had left my business card with the person who arranged our visit at the dargah, I kept receiving mailers every month. The mailer always had an appeal to contribute to a scheme to feed the poor at the shrine daily and it had the Garib Nawaz’s scared thread – something that believers tie around their wrists as a talisman. Each time I got the mailer I would ask my office to make a small contribution to the feeding scheme and I would forget about the mailer. This went on, for 6 months, almost mechanically. I never understood why I got those mailers. But on that day, around 5.30 pm, I stopped by at my office, after that fateful meeting with Vijayaraghavan. That was the first time I had heard the word “bankruptcy” with reference to our debt-laden, cashless situation. I was struggling to internalize what he had told us. And my practical, logical instincts told me that “there was no way out for us”! As I rode the elevator up to our office on the third floor, in those 30 seconds, I closed my eyes and meditated on the “Higher Energy” that powers the Universe. I prayed: “Show me a sign that we will make it!” It was, on a logical plane, a wasteful prayer. It was a captain’s valiant effort to see through a dark, stormy night, looking for a passing vessel, when his own ship was almost sunk! The elevator jerked as it reached the third floor. I opened my eyes and stepped out. I walked to my desk and I found a fresh mailer from the Garib Nawaz’s dargah sitting there, on top of a set of papers demanding my immediate attention! My assistant told me it had arrived that afternoon. Was that “the” sign? If you had asked me then, I would have been unsure. But 9 years on, we still are surviving, tethering at the edge at most times, but we are still there – hopeful and sure that we will make it! Was that “the” sign? You bet, it was!

Yet, as you can see, we have not just survived. We are driven now by a Higher Purpose – of Inspiring Happiness! So, we go about sharing, with all those who care to pause and reflect, through the lessons we have learnt from this cathartic phase in our Life, that it is possible to be happy despite the circumstances! So, December 31 has now become an anniversary of an awakening we have had – we have realized that if you let go and trust the process of Life, you will always be looked after!

December 31 was also the day, in 2012, when my wonderful publisher, Westland, made me an offer that I could not refuse – to publish Fall Like A Rose Petal. To me and Vaani, it is not just another Book. It is a spiritual journey. That offer came at a time when we were in a torrid phase in our bankruptcy, of complete worklessness (eventually we went on without an income stream for 30 months from June 2012 to December 2014)! The Book, which was launched only in August 2014, gave us a reason to last one more day each time, it gave meaning to why we were going through what we were.

Last evening, Vaani and I spent some time reflecting on the year gone by and told each other, no matter how tough the coming year would be, we would continue to remain focused, purposeful and dogged in our efforts to turn around the business (so that we could repay all our debt) and to Inspire Happiness among all those we connect with.

This morning as I got ready to go for a meeting at a Starbucks store, I reviewed our money situation. I didn’t have money on me for entertaining my guest, a business associate. My Starbucks loyalty card had just enough cash for one coffee. So, I arrived at the store planning to offer my guest the drink and decided to not have a coffee myself. But I reached the store ahead of my guest. A friend who was already there greeted me. She said she had been planning to reach out to me, to be my Santa – she wanted to load my Starbucks loyalty card with her gift!!! I protested. But she said she had been in touch with Vaani on this but, for some reason, she had not been able to do an online payment into my account. Before I knew it she had taken my Starbucks loyalty card from my hand and had loaded it with Rs.2000/-! I am so overwhelmed; I am still to make sense of her compassion, her generous gesture.

The symbolism of the convergence of Rs.2000/- and December 31 in our Life is not lost on us. This small miracle of a gift on my Starbucks loyalty card is yet another sign from the Universe. It seems to say to me and to Vaani: “Hang in there! If you are alive, it ain’t over yet!”

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The Universe is always showing you signs, leading the way – but are you tuned in?

If you are tuned to the Universe’s Energy, you will see always see – and follow – the signs that are meant to guide you along the way!

A young student reiterated this learning to us yesterday. Tawheed Sayyid is just another MBA student at first sight. He hails from Haripad in Kerala and is currently interning with a social entrepreneur in Chennai. Now, I know Kerala pretty well. I went to college in Kollam between 1982 and 1987. Though times have changed, I personally believe that while most people from that state are very creative, their potential often goes untapped and underutilized, more so if they go to college there, given the conservative, myopic, socio-political environment that they still grow up in. So, when I first met Tawheed, I was not surprised – he seemed the typical, quiet, meek, introverted kind. But when Vaani and I got to know him better, we discovered that he had, 5 years ago, lost 30 kilos over six months, dedicating himself to a fitness plan that he had found online (www.nowloss.com). Now, we found that inspiring. How does someone, who was just 17 (then), motivate himself to do something as remarkable as lose so much weight?

So, Vaani and I invited Tawheed over for a coffee. He is fasting this Ramadan season, so he didn’t even touch a drop of water. But his story left us with so much food for thought.

He says it all began when he consistently flunked in Math in his early school years when he lived with his parents in Abu Dhabi. So, by the time he reached the 8th grade, it had become imperative that he needed special tuition for Math. His parents put him under the watchful eye of an Indian teacher named Raji. Tawheed says that when he went to Raji’s home for the first time to enroll for his special tuition program, a quote by Swami Vivekananda, on her door, caught his attention and imagination. It read: “All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that…Stand up and express the divinity within you.” Tawheed says the quote had a magical impact on him. It made him question himself. And push himself. Besides, Raji too told him that she was not going to exactly make him more proficient in Math than she was going to make him believe in himself. So, the journey began for Tawheed, in believing in himself, and by the time he reached the 10^th grade, he had started scoring 80 % marks in Math – from sub 33% levels or the “Fail” grade as we commonly know it! Armed with this self-belief, Tawheed decided to go on a weight loss program. The motivation was purely adolescent in nature – his elder brother’s wedding was coming up and he wanted to “look good” by then. He stumbled on the online program, worked on it diligently, started avoiding elevators and climbed all 15 floors of his building several times a day, ate in moderation and in a matter of a six months, his weight had dropped from 105 kilos to 75 kilos. Tawheed will finish his MBA program next summer and is thinking of an entrepreneurial venture that hopes to marry people’s obsession with their smartphones with their intrinsic inner goodness, their empathetic nature – and in the process make the world a better place. Bravo!

Tawheed is just another student but what sets him apart is that he picked up, he actioned on, the signs the Universe showed him to get to where he is today – the Swami Vivekananda quote, Raji’s championship of self-belief in him, working out with the www.nowloss.com plan that came his way and his internship in a social enterprise that is making him think of making a difference apart from just wanting to make money.

And this Vaani and I have seen so many, many times in Life, if you are ready and willing, the Universe will always send you signs. It may be a car sticker, it may be tangential remark you may hear, it may be a movie dialogue, a song, the title of book or a newspaper headline. I talk about many such experiences in my Book ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal’ (Westland) too. I once had a random member of my audience walk up to me after my Book Launch event at the Odyssey Bookstore in Adyar, Chennai. She thanked my profusely for what I had shared that day – she said it changed her attitude to Life completely. I asked her how did she come to know of me and my Book. She said she was buying snacks from a roadside thelavala that evening and her pakodas came wrapped in a newspaper that had a mention of my Book and the Launch program. She said she felt an instant connect with me and what I was possibly going to share. I felt the Universe had brought her to where she ought to have been that evening.

The basic premise on which Life operates is simple – all that you need is always available. But you must be looking in the right direction. Often we end up looking in the direction of our wants or, worse, we are not even looking – we are complaining, grieving, suffering over what we don’t have. Staying tuned with the Universe’s Energy simply means staying connected with abundance, with the Higher Energy that has created you and me, with the Energy which powers the Universe. As long as you are living your Life logged into this access point, anchored to this Energy, it will always show you the way. Young Tawheed’s story is a gentle reminder that this principle works handsomely. And it is not something original that I bring to you. It is the most elementary of all Life principles. The Zen Masters would often say that when the student is ready, the teacher shall appear. I’ll just tweak that slightly and say, when you are tuned in to the Universe’s energy, you will find your way, no matter how lost you feel you are.

So, look up from all that’s causing your suffering. Please look up. There’s a benevolent light waiting to guide you onward – and inward! Just see the next sign that comes you way and follow it. It will take you to where you must arrive and where you truly belong!